Pre-summit Briefing 2017/6

19/20 October: The Leaders’ Agenda, Brexit and Other Issues

The October European Council seems certain to be one of its more important meetings. This is not because the ordinary business is extraordinary: migration policy, the digital market, security and defence, EU-Turkish relations, Korea, Iran and Trade Policy are, and will doubtless remain, parts of the European Council’s staple diet. Nor is it because EU27 will conclude that the Brexit negotiations have not yet made sufficient progress to justify beginning Phase 2. Given that EU27 have been obliged to negotiate with a leaderless government, important representatives of which would still apparently prefer no deal at all, the EU’s decision to defer the launch of Phase 2 until December at the earliest has been a foregone conclusion for many weeks.